Caltrans, the California Department of Transportation, has twelve districts covering the state. Northern California is broken up into eight districts.

District 1 – Del Norte / Humboldt / Mendocino / Lake Counties

District 2 – Siskiyou / Modoc / Trinity / Shasta / Lassen / Tehama / Plumas Counties

District 3 – Sacramento / Glenn / Colusa / Sierra / Butte / Yuba / Nevada / Placer / El Dorado / Yolo / Sutter Counties

District 4 – San Francisco / Marin / Sonoma / Napa / Solano / Contra Costa / Alameda / Santa Clara / San Mateo Counties

District 5 – Monterey / San Benito / Santa Cruz / San Luis Obipso / Santa Barbara Counties

District 6 – Fresno / Kern / Kings / Madera / Tulare Counties

District 9 – Inyo / Mono Counties

District 10 – San Joaquin / Amador / Alpine / Tuolumne / Calaveras /Mariposa / Stanislaus / Merced Counties

For general maintenance and traffic conditions, Caltrans offers a couple of different websites. I highly recommend their “Quickmap” for traffic conditions throughout the state. Traffic cameras, changeable message signs, CHP incidents, and more can be accessed via the site. There is also an Android phone app available for the Caltrans Quickmap. Look for a link on the Caltrans Quickmap website.

• Caltrans Quickmap
• Report A Maintenance Problem
  
• Report a Traffic or Work Zone Problem
• CHP Incident Reports
• Caltrans Adopt-A-Highway

Caltrans also maintains a database of all their highways and bridges. These are great resources for determining highway construction dates, old alignments, and much more. They can be found on the Structures Maintenance site by clicking here. The logs are broken up by district.

County Highway Departments

County Highways are maintained by a separate agency in each county, usually called a Public Works or Roads Department. These agencies maintain most of the roadways outside of incorporated cities, though some cities contract with the county for maintenance. Within these websites, you can find all sorts of valuable data, such as construction projects, closures, detours, and maintenance requests. I highly recommend contacting the agency closest to you should you have any problems with potholes, signs, or other issues. Most agencies do respond quickly to these problems and doing so can help create safer roadways for us all.

Some of these county agencies also have publicly available bridge and highway logs. Each county has a different format for their data, so don’t expect bridge and pavement dates for all of them. Agencies with online road and bridge logs are listed below with links to the appropriate sites.

Links Coming Soon!

Incorporated Cities

There are numerous incorporated cities throughout Northern California. Most cities have some method of reporting road problems, be it online, in person, or over the phone. Larger cities, such as Sacramento and San Diego offer an online method. I’ve had great success with the City of San Diego using their online maintenance form.